Category Archives: ktt

KiaSA Top Tips: Guild Wars 2

A list of (hopefully) useful tips and tricks we’ve found while rummaging around in the Guild Wars 2 beta. We’ve only been playing for a short while so far, and not played before, so it’ll be an equally short list of basic tips to start off with, but we’ll add to it as and when we stumble upon tidbits that may be QI to others. Do feel free to add your own tips in the comments and we’ll pop them in the main list with an appropriate attribution.

  • Whether you like it or not – remember it’s still a Beta (you can sing this to the tune of Remember You’re A Womble if it’ll help you at moments of high stress.)

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  • Those of you with ATI/AMD graphics cards may find that upon entering the game world you’re faced with a UI and an otherwise black screen. Press Esc, go into the graphics options and disable Depth of Field, which fixed this in my instance. Apparently the game is optimised for NVidia cards only at the moment, so expect slightly more frinky graphical glitches during the beta if you’re part of The Way It’s Also Possible To Be Played set.

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  • The music on the login page is indeed on the loud side – although if any game music were going to have to be loud, I’d take the Guild Wars soundtrack any day. There is a cog icon in the top left corner of the login screen which will open the options page and allow you to reduce the audio levels.

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  • When you’re on the character selection screen look to the top left and you’ll see a Contacts icon next to the Options icon. You can check which of your friends is online before you login, and then choose which of your characters to play based on who’s on what and where.

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  • Helmets and shoulder-pads can be turned off in the Hero sheet (Press H) by right-clicking the appropriate piece of armour. Useful if those Mesmer masks freak you out as much as they do me.

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  • Speaking of outfits: the small icons at the top centre of the Hero sheet above your character model allow you to select your town outfit which, for my norn warrior at least, was a rather fetching pirate get-up that matched her bandana rather nicely.

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  • Autoloot can be enabled through the options menu (Press Esc) General Options -> Interactions. It does, however, still show you the icons of what you looted in the bottom right of the screen, and you can mouse-over each one for a description of the item. After a short period of time these icons fade out. Don’t panic! Autoloot does not steal the armour from other PCs: they all look that naked with their armour on.

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  • Speak to any scouts you see (they have a spyglass icon above their head), they will often give you information about the area, and point out new events and locations on your map. They are not recruiting for X-Factor or Next Top Model, though.

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  • You may need to bind Dodge to a key – it was unbound for me, although I may have used the default key for something else. Either way, make sure it’s bound, and use it whenever you can, it will help to keep you alive as much as ‘6’ (the heal key) will.

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  • If you’re taking a screenshot, perhaps for sending to ArenaNet, then consider binding a key to Screenshots: High-Res in the options (Press Esc) Control Options.

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  • You can merge your inventory into one large bag by unchecking the Bags checkbox at the top on the inventory screen (Press I). You can keep your inventory nice and neat by pressing the Compact icon next to the Bags checkbox. This will move all items up to the top of the inventory, filling in any empty spaces you may have from selling or equipping items – it’s a nice way to keep all the new loot going in at the bottom of your inventory so it’s easy to find.

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  • Don’t just chain-run quests, take time to smell the roses. Unless you’re doing the Smell the Roses quest, obviously.

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KiaSA Top Tips.

Parents, add a level of MMO adventuring fun to your child’s Easter celebrations by offering them a quest to collect twenty small chocolate eggs which are hidden around the garden. When they come back to you with the basket of eggs, ask them now to go and find five slightly larger eggs which you’ve just hidden in the poison ivy in the same part of the garden. Upon their return, ask them finally to find the one large egg hidden somewhere near the top of the holly tree in the garden, next to the poison ivy.

When they eventually bring you that final trophy, they should be exhausted, battered, emotionally drained but somewhat triumphant. Offer them your thanks. Then throw all the eggs away and give them five pence and a garlic press as a reward.

Yours derivatively,

Watt Arottendev

KiaSA Top Tips for APB

For new players to All Points Bulletin, a quick guide from pre-launch:

  • Voice is broadcast by default; either go into the VoIP section of the Audio options to change it to push to talk, or if you’re wearing a headset be vewy, vewy quiet when sneaking up on wabbits (and enemy players) or they’ll hear you.  Or take advantage, by saying very loudly “I’M JUST GOING TO GO UP THESE STAIRS HERE AT THE FRONT OF THE BUILDING”, then sneak off up a ladder round the back.

  • You show up as a red triangle on enemy radar (and vice versa) when either sprinting or in a vehicle.

  • APB is very much like making love to a beautiful woman (© Swiss Toni), it’s better in a group. Pull up the group window (“U” by default) to find one (a group, that is; beautiful women are currently unavailable via in-game mechanisms).

  • When riding as a passenger in a car, press forward or back (“W/”S”) to lean out of the window and shoot at stuff. Don’t press “F”, unless you want to get out.

  • If there are four of you in a car, the two on the passenger side need to be very careful firing directly ahead or behind, or there will very soon be three in the car. If someone leaning out of the opposite side of the car happens to shoot you, they probably meant it.

  • To add your own music to the game, pull up the music player (default “P”), select “Import”, and navigate to the folder containing the MP3s. You can also toggle between having your music playing all the time, or just in cars.

  • Setting up a playlist containing only the theme from The Professionals to play whenever you get into a car instantly makes the game 42.7% more awesome

  • Pick a gun to suit your style; out of the tutorial you can buy the OCA-EW submachine gun for close-in work, or the Obeya rifle if you prefer longer range shots.  (Speak to a contact to buy weapons, vehicles and upgrades.)  Alternatively, choose the one that best matches your shoes.

  • If an enemy group are holed up around an objective, charging directly towards their waiting guns generally doesn’t work as well as taking a bit of time to scope the area and look for unexpected approaches or overlooking sniper positions. If your clan is closely modelled on the Crimean War era Light Brigade, though, go for it, it’ll make a great poem.

KiaSA Top Tips.

MMO fans, simulate the highs and lows of your favourite MMO’s release cycle quickly and easily and from the comfort of your own home! Simply drink several litres of water until you desperately need to pee, then don’t allow yourself to go until you’re forced to hop from foot to foot just to stop yourself from bursting. When you can’t take any more, and your anticipation of the big event is unbearable, allow yourself to go just a little bit before stopping yourself again, thus experiencing a few seconds of respite before enduring even greater aching desperation than before. Finally, when your eyes are watering and you fear you may start to pee out of your ears, commit yourself to the final outpour of content. Enjoy relief and euphoria for the twenty seconds or so that it takes for you to complete the entire release, before finding yourself spent and exhausted and without anything left to do but flush the entire result of your efforts down the toilet and wait for the next cycle to begin!

Yours bladderingly,

I.P. Forfun

KiaSA Top Tips.

MMO raiders, stave off boredom whilst on holiday by picking a fast food outlet at random from the local directory and then attempting to drive there without using the brakes on your car. Learning all the traffic light sequences along the way in order not to have to slow down will simulate the complex knowledge required for end game raiding, and pedestrians crossing the road in front of you can be equated to trash mobs trying to stop you from getting to the boss.

Once you’ve managed to get to there a few times without braking, or have had enough of the fatty loot at the end, simply pick a slightly upmarket restaurant and start all over again for higher rewards!

Yours repetitively,

Stu Pidraid

KiaSA Top Tips.

MMO players, enhance the faithfulness of your STO experience!

Delay playing Star Trek Online for six months, then use a trial account to pretend you’re visiting from an alternative dimension where they’ve never heard of these strange inevitabilities that you Earth creatures call ‘insurmountable lag’, ‘sever instability’ and ‘hideous balancing issues’. Then try to sleep with the captain of the first starship you encounter before disappearing after fourteen days, never to return.

Yours inverse-particly,

Mrs Unas Tayble-Wurmholl.

Kiasa Top Tips.

Involve your non-gaming friends and family in the MMO Experience by randomly calling them on their mobile phones at the most inconvenient time and offering to sell them something they already have plenty of for a low low price.

Enhance the experience further by phrasing your sentences like Yoda and pronouncing every other word incorrectly!

Yours farmingly,

Goldie Sellars.